In today's computing world, security has come to the forefront of technological concerns due to the proliferation of viruses, trojan horses, worms, and other malicious software designed to harass and annoy. Virtually all businesses, banks, universities, hospitals and other organizations rely upon computing systems to store, access, and distribute sensitive information. Networks such as the Internet and smaller, local networks are prevalent and provide a greater degree of flexibility and capabilities than ever before attained. However, networking presents an attacker with a unique opportunity to intercept communications, or otherwise compromise security systems without alerting the computing system operator of the breach. A serious security breach could easily cause damage measured in billions of dollars. Given the high stakes involved, and the persistence of attackers, there is a need to strengthen computing security measures.
Each device on a network typically must be identified and trusted before transactions between the device and others on the network are secure. In an earlier day, efforts were made to centralize registration of device identities. Such efforts have largely failed and are undesirable. Having a single central identification service necessarily confers absolute identifying power in one place, which for several reasons, is undesirable. First, it is next to impossible to reach an agreement as to who will control the central service; second, the potential damage an attacker could cause if they could compromise the central service can be astronomical; and third, not all identifiers are of equal desirability, and assigning identifiers arbitrarily is prone to start “turf wars” over a particular persistent identifier. Also, certain agencies or entities may have security measures so strict that they are forbidden from joining the central service. These are just a few examples of why a central service has failed in the past, and is an unlikely direction for the security community to pursue in the future.